Execute wincsp command line arguments from within R

Question

I have some command line batch code which I can run in my windows command prompt just fine. I'm basically pushing a local file text file to a remote server using WinSCP command line arguments - https://winscp.net/eng/docs/commandline. These are the commands I use, in order:

to open up winscp command line:

winscp

then to open connection to my server through ssh:

open sftp://myUserName:[email protected]

upload file to remote server:

put directoryMyLocalFileIsIn\fileToUpload.csv /locationOnRemoteServer/whatToNameFileOnRemoteServer.csv

then close connection:

close

This all works fine. But, I want to run this all from within RStudio.. My issue - after I run:

shell.exec("winscp")

I can see the winscp shell is opened up. But when I try and run my next commands like these:

shell.exec("open sftp://myUserName:[email protected]")

It just doesnt run in that winscp shell that opened up.. I've also used all sorts of combinations of R commands like shell, system2 and shell.

Again, I can open up the winscp shell successfully from within R. But I cant figure out how to then run commands in that shell. Anyone know how to do this?

Thank you.

If you're using the latest Windows 10 version, note that it has ssh and scp installed. No more need to use putty and WinSCP. — Hong Ooi
– Hong Ooi, Commented Sep 28, 2018 at 14:07
what has ssh and scp installed.. the windows 10 command line? — gsol
– gsol, Commented Sep 28, 2018 at 14:47
I think Hong is referring to running Linux on Windows as such: howtogeek.com/249966/… — Jas
– Jas, Commented Sep 29, 2018 at 3:53
FWIW there's an ssh package for R that includes scp capability right from R. — hrbrmstr
– hrbrmstr, Commented Sep 29, 2018 at 11:39

edonn · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-28 13:47:31Z

3

You need to call WinSCP and specify all commands using a single call from R. The best way to do this is to save your WinSCP commands in a single text file, e.g. myscript.txt:

open sftp://myUserName:[email protected]
put directoryMyLocalFileIsIn\fileToUpload.csv /locationOnRemoteServer/whatToNameFileOnRemoteServer
exit

Then, from the command line, you can call WinSCP as follows (see the WinSCP documentation):

winscp.com /script=myscript.txt

(you might need to specify the exact path for WinSCP and myscript.txt)

Finally, to accomplish this from R, use the system2 command as follows:

system2(
  "winscp.com",
  args = c("/script=myscript.txt"))

Again, you might need to specify the paths to winscp.com and myscript.txt.

answered Sep 28, 2018 at 13:47

edonn

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